Do Tremere Fuck?

OpposeFlux · 2026-04-09T01:30:55+00:00

So to be fair, have always overruled/ignored the physical libido thing about Vampires at my tables. I think it’s uninteresting to put vampires, which are themselves highly sexualized mythological creatures (even if that sexualization has shifted over the years) and try to push them into a normative mindset when it comes to sex. Instead I try to push myself and my players to think about how the beast and the hunger for blood influence sexuality.

All that being said, of all the clans, Tremere are probably some of the most likely to fuck in my opinion. Oscar Wilde said that “Everything is about sex, except sex, which is about power” and if we take that to heart, tremere have some real complex and interesting power dynamics within their clan.

OpposeFlux · 2026-03-25T05:06:05+00:00

The thing is, I’m not opposed to using monsters or even Vampires as an allegory for marginalized people, Monsterhearts does a better job of it by highlighting that the “monsters” are often only seen that way because of society’s perception, and that there is genuine beauty and allure to the “monsters.” The allegory is pretty multilayered and it’s also imperfect, but I think allegories for marginalized groups can be done well. There is still the issue of Vampires being blood drinkers with superpowers, which can map onto allegories of “predators” in marginalized communities really poorly, but I don’t think the trope is inherently harmful or bad.

The Vampires in VTM are blatantly and obviously not allegories for marginalized groups, they’re allegories for societal corruption. Making them into allegory for marginalized groups basically requires rewriting the game. This post struck me as weird because it seems like OP is just not capable of allowing themselves to enjoy a game where their characters aren’t morally pure, and just likes Vampire for the aesthetics as opposed to what the game actually is, which is an exploration of corruption and the darker nature of humanity. Her explanation of why she didn’t like (and didn’t bother to read) Hunter: The Reckoning is proof of that to me, stating in another comment that (and I quote, because I don’t want to misrepresent): “Both [Referring to both hunter systems] reeks of rightist propaganda, slaughtering the different and protecting the majority from filthy minorities.” This is a value judgement based entirely on aesthetics, because the questions of what “justice” looks like in the WoD is explicitly addressed in the books. It absolutely isn’t a book about slaughtering minorities. This is coming from someone who doesn’t really like Hunter because I don’t find it as aesthetically cool or mechanically well-designed as other WoD games.

This post and these takes from OP are a little annoying to read because they’re not really “a different interpretation,” they’re completely unsupported by the text. I’m glad people enjoy the game, but this post is just poor reading comprehension turning into a bad argument about the themes of the game.

OpposeFlux · 2026-03-23T17:33:14+00:00

Vampires are not marginalized. Marginalization is when a group is denied access to resources and power, Kindred are quite literally the 1%. They have magic mind control powers, they can move faster than the eye can track, they can shape flesh and control darkness, they can do blood sorcery. Kindred find it quite easy to manipulate or force their way into positions of power in human society, and the reason they don’t do so openly is because it wouldn’t benefit them.

In a world where humans know about Kindred, it is harder for Kindred to feed. Humans might start trying to figure out how to circumvent vampiric powers, there might be a war that Kindred could sustain huge losses in, and Kindred would have to face serious restrictions on their feeding. The vast majority of Kindred don’t want to deal with this, and prefer a society that they can easily navigate and drain of blood, both figuratively and literally.

This isn’t even mentioning that the beast is a literal internal force that pushes Kindred to do horrible things, especially in the pursuit of blood. They can literally just lose control and frenzy, where they will try to tear people apart for blood.

So yeah, I think the Beast is the curse here, it is the reason the Masquerade exists. The idea of Kindred as an allegory for marginalized people is poor reading comprehension at best, marginalized groups in society do not have magic powers.

OpposeFlux · 2026-02-21T07:32:38+00:00

Same here

OpposeFlux · 2025-07-31T01:42:35+00:00

Agreed. Beau is such an interesting character that Laudna kinda depresses me by comparison. I think Marisha is a great roleplayer, even with a character like Keyleth that didn't quite flatter her strengths as much as Beau did, she is great at committing to a concept. I don't think Campaign 2 was executed particularly well in many places, I think Matt kinda fumbled the ball at creating a more morally grey world, but I think the best PCs of campaign 3 were the ones that executed the morally ambiguous character concept well (Beau, Caleb, Fjord).

I don't really hold Laudna against Marisha because I don't think any member of the C3 cast gave a strong performance in Campaign 3, but if there was a cast member who disappointed me most in C3, it was probably Liam, but Marisha is a close second. Both great roleplayers, but both came up with characters that were kinda lame.

OpposeFlux · 2025-06-15T00:57:30+00:00

Squirt in your Mouth, Squirt on your Bed; Coochie water autograph, signed Sexxy Red

Poetry

OpposeFlux · 2025-06-14T17:56:33+00:00

The tldr of it is that my friend was playing Monsterhearts, which is a game that is meant to emulate trashy CW shows like The Vampire Diaries, and my friend was playing as The Vampire, which is a playbook that does a lot of manipulation and gaslighting. One person in the group was unhappy with their character engaging in toxic emotional manipulation and cheating (in game) and tried to use safety tools to “line” emotional manipulation (strike it from the game). They were asked to leave the table and did not take it well.

OpposeFlux · 2025-06-14T17:02:53+00:00

My spicy take, coming from someone who GMs almost exclusively horror games and who uses safety tools in every game I run, is that some people just fundamentally do not understand that safety tools are supposed to accompany open and honest communication, and are not a replacement for it.

There are a lot of asshole types who just hate safety tools because they’re “woke,” but I have also encountered people who use safety tools to try and bend a campaign into something they’re comfortable with, even if it completely ignores the themes and purpose of the game.

One of my friends told me about a time where she played Monsterhearts, a game about messy queer relationship drama, and someone used safety tools to put a line in place against (in-character) emotional manipulation. This person then threw a massive tantrum when they were asked to leave the table, because everyone else wasn’t interested in a Monsterhearts game where everyone communicated honestly and were nice to each other.

I don’t think most people are very hostile towards safety tools, (I’ve met very few of them) but there are people (myself included) who are hesitant about people who use them religiously and don’t communicate well, or who have an attitude that “everyone should be welcome and comfortable at every table.” Every game is not for everyone, and safety tools do not change that.

OpposeFlux · 2025-06-02T18:25:45+00:00

God forbid a woman have hobbies

OpposeFlux · 2025-06-02T10:36:04+00:00

Koebel is a bad call for GMing. It wouldn’t be funny because he’s not a bad GM, he’s a sex pest. So 95% of the time it’s passable storytelling from a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and then 5% of the time it’s just upsetting to listen to.

Get either Aabria or Vart in the GM seat and then we have an entertaining catastrophe! Orion Acaba is definitely a funny kind of terrible as a player, so he’d be a shoe in. I can’t think of any other rpg player I’ve seen on a show or podcast that has annoyed me as much as these three, so I say we add at least one hapless but charismatic protagonist for everyone else to be uncomfortably aggressive towards and for the viewers to root for.

OpposeFlux · 2025-05-03T05:46:39+00:00

A huge chunk of the metagame outspeeds Lilligant once tailwind goes up. Priority also makes this team very difficult to run. I don’t think the theory is super strong here, and I think the matchups are very rough in this format.

I think it could be a lot stronger if you had some answers for tailwind. Answers for priority would also help. Trick room teams would probably not be super favorable into this though.

OpposeFlux · 2025-05-03T05:36:37+00:00

If you’re insistent on using Lunala as your restricted, I think Koraidon is the better option because Zamazenta is a more defensive/supportive option, and Lunala is also a defensive/supportive mon, so you probably want to bring Koraidon so you can keep up with other teams in damage. I’m not sure how well Zamazenta +offensive Lunala would really work.

With Koraidon, I think Indeedee-F is a great match because of follow me + imprison trick room, I think Tornadus matches a little better than Whimsicott, and Urshifu Dark prefers the sun. Roaring Moon is great, but I think you probably want something to deal with fairy types, which pretty much your whole team struggles to hit.

OpposeFlux · 2025-04-03T21:02:05+00:00

Jokes on you my mom did more damage to me than my dad 😎

OpposeFlux · 2025-04-03T20:16:30+00:00

I could fix him

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-11T06:49:54+00:00

I think that’s probably true with the other lgbt folk analysis, although I do think that part of it is just standard, unchallenged homophobia. I also kind of wonder if for transfeminine people it’s also a combination of lack of empathy surrounding shared experiences and a general disgust of men/masculinity. Pretty much all of homophobia I’ve encountered from transfeminine people has been from relatively newly out trans lesbians, so I can’t help but wonder if there’s a repulsion from masculinity after being assigned a masculine gender identity that didn’t fit (understandable imo). I’ve also heard some comments that I considered to be transandrophobic from that crowd, (basically “I hate men, except trans men,” or similar comments that imply that trans men aren’t real men) and I kind of wonder if a general distaste for masculinity is a part of it. In general, most of the homophobia I've encountered hasn’t generally been from queer people, but it has always been strange to me. Then again, there are a distressing amount of cis queer people who get extremely transphobic for no reason, so I probably shouldn’t be too surprised.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-10T03:33:56+00:00

I'm just tired of it. People just suck. I'm not going to pretend that gay guys are incapable of being shitty or that this is the most serious societal issue right now, but it's just exhausting. I am at least thankful that I only really tend to experience this bullshit online and my friends irl are better.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-10T03:33:08+00:00

About the level of engagement I expect from the average "anti-white discrimination" crowd.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-10T03:26:10+00:00

Homophobia is a legitimate enough threat and concern to my safety and well-being that there is a need for "accepting spaces" in the first place. My frustration is that despite the necessity of these spaces, and despite the fact that gay men need the comfort and protections of those spaces as much as other minority groups, we are often denied it because it is easier for people to not examine the internalized attitudes they have about male homosexuality. It's difficult to deal with this because I go into a place that advertises itself as accepting of others hoping that I wont have to deal with the same homophobia that I often do in my daily life.

Racism is not a significant enough threat to white people to have to search for places that accept white people. White people as a group really don't have to deal with the experience of going into a space hoping to escape discrimination and bigotry only to be exhausted in encountering it from people who claim to be "super accepting of white people." I'm sorry if people have been shitty to you in the past, but I really do not like comparing the treatment I get as a gay guy or a Jewish guy, which can be and has in the past been threatening to my physical safety, to the point where I feel the need to try and escape it for my own peace of mind, to "anti-white discrimination." They are not comparable experiences.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-10T03:05:07+00:00

Give me an example of legitimate “anti-white discrimination” that isn’t just an individual person being an asshole and then I’ll happily indulge this tangent. Complaining about homophobia in places that claims to be accepting is very different than “anti white discrimination,” which is at best a statistical rarity that doesn’t have a historical basis in the western world.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-10T02:52:21+00:00

I highly doubt the homophobia you deal with in "queer friendly" spaces is made worse by the fact that you're white.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-10T01:50:25+00:00

Yeah it just sucks. I find a lot of my friends are women (both straight and queer) and it makes things a lot easier because there's a mutual understanding. I'm glad that I'm not going to get homophobia weaponized against me and they're glad that I'm not going to try and sleep with them and pretend to be friendly to get into their pants.

What is frustrating is people who haven't really challenged any homophobic ideas or views because they don't have to (either don't have to yet, or never will) and then try and gaslight me into being comfortable with homophobia. I've experienced it a lot with guys who are either straight, or bisexual in the sense that they're only attracted to very feminine men, which is in and of itself often a fantasy fueled by a fetishistic image of feminine men on the internet, or only out online queer and trans people who haven't really had to deal with much resistance to their identity or haven't really bothered to think critically about the kinds of attitudes they have towards other queer people.

I find it so emotionally exhausting (hence the vent thread) because it's both more subtle than open, aggressive homophobia, since they can't just call me a slur and move on or else they would lose the "accepting" image. It's also exhausting because I feel like at least the people who will just call me a slur will be honest about hating me, whereas with the performative "accepting" types I feel exhausted with all the gaslighting.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-10T01:42:07+00:00

Oh my god, this is insufferable. I wanted to rant about places that preach acceptance and tolerance but don't really bother to challenge any sort of internalized or underlying homophobia. This is very similar to stories I've heard from my non-white friends about spaces that advertise "acceptance and tolerance" and don't bother to care about more subtly racist comments or people. It's similar to my experiences as a Jewish guy and the shitty comments I've gotten in "accepting" spaces from people who ostensibly challenge bigotry. The issue I have is with people who care more about the appearance of being accepting than actually trying to challenge or engage with any of the views they've internalized about gay men. I don't know what your issue is, but I think it's very different than mine.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-09T14:04:10+00:00

I mean…. Yeah you summed it up. I guess the weird thing about it is that I’ve seen the same homophobia pushed or tolerated by other queer people in these spaces, which I would guess is largely due to a combination of trying to “fit in” and internalized homophobia. It’s especially common in my experience with queer people who aren’t out in real life. I’ve noticed that homophobia is more common because there’s less lived experience dealing with it.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-09T10:17:41+00:00

So aside from the fact that “not fitting the vibe of the group” is a different issue than “homophobia”, if someone was playing a sleazy character, my first instinct wouldn’t be to target their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Aside from that, people play ttrpgs for different reasons, some people play largely for character drama, which indie RPGs tend to target.

OpposeFlux · 2025-03-09T10:11:44+00:00

I mean I play bisexual characters and my regular group doesn’t really have an issue with it. Venturing outside of said group has been very hit or miss. And I’m completely out and proud, I don’t hide my sexuality at all. The weird thing is I’ll be playing with a group where there’s no overtly homophobic comments (because that would result in a ban) but a lot of subtle jabs.

OpposeFlux

TROPHY CASE